Not One Penny for Tribute

The senate met yesterday in a special session. They either addressed the portion of the Budget Repair Bill that dealt with collective bargaining or stripped out the fiscal portions of the bill. I suspect the latter. The logic here was that the bill they were voting on did not require a quorum because it had no fiscal impact(By which I think it means that it does not cost the state more money than is currently being spent -not necessarily that it really has no impact. Because truthfully a reduction in spending is an impact. Sorry if that doesn't make any sense, but it's been a long day here.)

Because it is a different bill than the one the assembly approved after 60+ hours of debate, it will go to the assembly later today. It is not substantially different, so there shouldn't need to be much debate on it.

The session was held quickly and in a highly irregular manner. Many are saying that it was not a legal vote, because the session and vote was not posted for a certain number of hours in advance of the session.This is what we will be hearing about until we are sick of it in days to come. The legislature says it met under the rules described in "Special and Extraordinary Sessions of the Wisconsin Legislature" .

I suspect, but not being a lawyer myself, could not say definitively, that the section under "The Call" gives them the authority to have called this vote the way they did and to have held the vote the way they did. The following is what I believe to be the pertinent section:

"In an opinion to Governor Emanuel
L. Philipp in 1918, Attorney General Spencer Haven indicated that the executive’s options in
calling a special session were quite broad:
It will be noted that this provision of the constitution leaves the matter wholly within your hands. You are hampered by no machinery, and no limitations. The time of issuing the proclamation, the time when the session shall convene, the subjects to be considered thereat, the length of notice to be given to the members, the method of notifying them, all are left entirely to your discretion. (7 OAG 49)
Attorney General Stewart G. Honeck’s opinion in 1948 (37 OAG 374) stated that the call may be issued in person or by mail, telephone or telegraph. He also added that failure to contact individual members who are out of the state or unavailable does not invalidate the special session. "(emphasis mine)

It looks to me as though they were under none of the limitations ordinarily governing the time of the session or the amount of public notice given before this meeting.

There are an awful lot of people out there making an awful lot of ridiculous statements about this. I saw a teachers union member on the news claiming that this was done because the republicans are out to "get our children". (Those were the actual words-can you believe that?) That, "teachers and the unions are the only ones standing up for our children's rights". If that were true, then why do teachers and administrators habitually deny our children their Constitutional rights during school hours, to say nothing of refusing to notify parents when their children need help to exercise those rights? If that were true, then why would the unions obstruct charter schools that are running more efficiently(i.e. more cheaply) and with better results(i.e. better grades) to keep them from succeeding? For that matter, if it were truly about the children, then why not endorse and restructure the educational system around homeschooling? I'll tell you why. Because it is not about the children, it is about power.

My speculation is that these people are so deluded that they cannot discern a lie even when it is told by themselves. But then what do you expect of those who embrace the Madison state of mind? Madison, a place where some of the people out here in the hinterlands say is the place that logic goes to die.

This is the right thing for our state and for the rest of the nation(Since they insist upon poking their noses into our business, I may as well include them.) The unions need to be restored to their reasonable role -that of ensuring reasonable wages along with healthy and safe working conditions - and leave politics to We the People.

"The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace." ~Isaiah 59:8

"And when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks, and laid them on the fire, there came a viper out of the heat, and fastened on his hand." ~Acts 29:3